Cheesy Black Bean Risotto

Yes, I said week. It’s a little random, I know, but the inspiration for “Risotto Week” came when I started totaling my Black Friday bills. Not to mention, we are in the process of refurnishing parts of our home, and we’ve been eating out more lately… ‘tis the season for spending!

Or, maybe not! As I brainstormed ways to cut back on our grocery bill this week, an image of the my 36 ounce container of risotto popped into my head.

The one that was “worth the money” because I would supposedly make risotto all the time. The one that is still sitting on a shelf, waiting to be used.

Please tell me I’m not the only one?

Anyway, my brilliant plan is to save money on meals this week by just making many varieties of risotto. And my first attempt – although somewhat spontaneous – turned out as creamy and delicious as ever.

So here's the deal: this quinoa salad is the current love of my life, and our oven and stove are broken. Like, leaking gas into our house whenever it turns on and I'm not allowed to bake anything at the risk of exploding the building. And as I might have mentioned 100 times this year, we also don't have a microwave, so I'm at this point in my life where I'm being forced to eat something cold, and considering that we also don't have a freezer for ice cream (this is turning into a perfect sob story of life abroad)…

That's soft homemade caramel + melted chocolate you're gazing at. Smooshed into the middle layer of that piece of "cake". And now I'll give you a minute to catch your breath and for me to wipe the warm chocolate and drippy caramel off my forehead. Things got crazy. In general, I try not to make really obnoxiously lofty claims around here, like "best recipe that ever existed", "the only recipe you'll ever need", "the recipe that will change your life". But I'll just give it to you straight: THIS RECIPE WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Right now I'm having a hard…

Trust me. You don’t even want to know how many titles I came up with for these little pots of joy. Instead of sharing all of the potential recipe titles with you, I will give you the chance to do something more productive with your 3 seconds. Like look at this picture and wonder what’s going on (that’s exactly what I was doing, too). That, and talking on the phone with a Spanish speaking acquaintance, trying to explain that I would be late because there was “mucho agua”. Embarrassing. Flash flood what? I had no idea what that meant until this…

Whenever a visitor, staff, child, or adoptive family leaves CSC to go back home, the kids sing a goodbye song and everyone hugs. Like literally, every kid hugs every person. That's 80+ hugs and yet somehow, for me, it went way too fast. In looking back at our goodbye, I just wish I could have had a full minute to look each individual sweet kid in the eyes, study their face one last time, and hold them tight for longer than any of them would have been comfortable with. But instead I just got millions of billions of hugs and…